James Maguire

Imagine you’re in a meeting with a high-powered venture capitalist. The kind of guy who just gleamsmoney. If only you could convince him to invest in your Web property, you’d be on your way to Tahiti, there to sip Pina Coladas and count your cash as delightful sea breezes wash in. But how do you […]

Whenever a new technology gathers momentum, the buzzwords start flying fast and loose. Remember the late ‘90s, when everyone was using the word “space”? (As in, “This site competes in the consumer technology space.”) These days, it’s bit embarrassing to use “space,” though a few diehards still toss it around. Today’s fashionable new technology, software […]

When Bharat Mediratta’s wife came back from a trip to India, her camera was stuffed full of pictures. Bharat (pronounced “Bart”) wanted to post them online, yet he ran into a minor obstacle: he didn’t like any of the photo posting solutions. This was the year 2000, before Flickr. But that type of site didn’t […]

There’s no doubt about it: virtualization is hot. Actually, red hot. Virtualization vendor VMware, whose IPO in August has rocketed upward, recently reported its third quarter profit tripled from a year ago. Research firm IDC forecasts that the virtualization market will double between now and 2011, to a robust $11.7 billion annually. The breathless enthusiasm […]

UPDATE: See the 2009 IT Salary Guide Also see: IT Salary Survey, January 2009 (gives comparative numbers between ’08 and ’09.) The 2008 IT Salary Guide indicates that the average starting salary will increase by 5.3 percent over 2007 levels, with some high demand positions commanding 7 percent. This healthy increase is due to a […]

In the bad old days of 2001, tech headhunters (also called “job recruiters” or a “placement specialists”) were driven out of business. No one was hiring, so who needed recruiters? But as tech hiring has picked up, headhunters are once again glued to their cell phones. “Now everybody and their brother is getting back into […]

The Interop 2007 trade show in New York was a place for tech vendors of all sizes to tout their wares. Over 200 companies showed up to promote themselves, from global giants like IBM and Microsoft to fledgling start-ups hoping to win some major clients. Their offerings ran the IT gamut: wireless gear, network monitoring […]

It was the fall of 1999 and there was a fever in the air. The dotcom frenzy was in full bonanza, it was gonzo, and it was going to last forever. VA Linux was riding the wave. Founded in 1993, the company earned a modest profit selling computers with Linux pre-installed, replacing aging (and costly) […]

The competition for market share between the leading desktop OSes, Windows, Mac and Linux, has seen no major revolution this year. But based on data from Net Applications, there have been subtle changes that suggest major shifts in the years ahead. In sum, Apple claimed the largest number of new users, though it remains a […]

How do people get filthy rich in the tech field? The smart money knows that, in the Darwinian tech sector, software is vastly more profitable than hardware. After all, a software company can create additional copies for sale with just a few mouse clicks. No additional physical assets are required. It’s an exceptionally sweet deal. […]